Sex differences in functional brain organization

This is the repository for the publication:

Bianca Serio, Meike D. Hettwer, Lisa Wiersch, Giacomo Bignardi, Julia Sacher, Susanne Weis, Simon B. Eickhoff, & Sofie L. Valk, (2024) Sex differences in functional cortical organization reflect differences in network topology rather than cortical morphometry. Nature Communications, 15, 7714. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-51942-1.

Preprint version available here

Scripts

1. Preparing the data

• calculate_fc_matrices_hcp_schaefer.ipynb computes functional connectivity matrices in Schaefer 400 parcellation from the HCP BOLD timeseries (averaged across 4 resting state sessions) at the individual level
• p1_main_function.ipynb gets the functional connectivity matrices at the individual level
• p1_main_microstructure.ipynb gets the microstructural intensity profile matrices at the individual level
• p1_geodesic_distance.ipynb gets the geodesic distance of the functional connectivity profiles at the individual level
• p1_connectivity_profiles_binary_matrices.py computing binary matrices for the Chi Square test of independence contingency tables
• p1_connectivity_profiles_strength_fc_sub_level.py computes functional connectivity strength at the subject level for top 10% fucntional connections

2. Main analyses

• p1_main.ipynb computes and visualizes main analyses
• p1_main.R computes linear mixed effects models for main analyses
• p1_connectivity_profiles_sex_diff.py runs Chi Square test of independence on contingency tables, testing for sex differences in the odds of connections belonging to the seed's top 10% functional connections at the individual level
• p1_spin_permutation_lmer_within_between_network_dispersion.py spin permutation test to construct empirical null distribution of beta values for within and between network dispersion analyses

3. Functions

• p1_myfunctions.ipynb contains functions used for main analyses

Data

• Sample includes young adults (N=1000) from Human Connectome Project (HCP) S1200 release
• Source Data.ods contains the source data used to make all figures included in the publication

Support

Please address any questions about the analyses or code to Bianca Serio

---

Research poster presented at:

• Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM), Montreal 2023
• Annual meeting of the Organization for the Study of Sex Differences (OSSD), Bergen 2024